What You Should Know About Wearing Braces While Playing Sports

Football Players Mouthguards

Orthodontic treatment usually begins during a time in a person’s life when they are in school and involved in many activities, including sports. Fortunately, you can still fully participate in sporting activities with braces. This includes football, basketball, baseball, soccer or anything else that suits you as an athlete. Braces don’t have to interfere with the enjoyment of your life as long as you take the necessary precautions.

There are ways to protect yourself when playing sports while wearing braces, especially if you’re playing a sport that’s physical and involves a lot of contact with other athletes. Anytime you’re playing sports, whether or not you have braces, you should take the necessary precautions to remain safe. The precaution you take will need to increase if you wear braces. Why? Because accidents happen that you cannot control, and you need to be prepared to minimize the amount of damage that occurs.

Having an incident when you wear braces can be painful if you don’t protect yourself. This is because of the metal components that are part of the braces and how they can potentially push against your lips and other areas of your mouth. In addition to being painful, it can hinder your treatment process, including the timeframe. The purpose of braces is to push your teeth in the desired direction through the use of pressure. When an injury occurs, it can potentially result in pressure that affects the movement of your teeth. In other words, your teeth may no longer be properly aligned.

Fortunately, there is a way to protect your braces while playing sports so that you don’t have to deal with this problem. An orthodontist will often recommend an orthodontic mouthguard for athletes with braces. However, there are different types of mouthguards that you can wear.

Orthodontic Mouthguard

The purpose of an orthodontic mouthguard is to protect your teeth at different times during your orthodontic treatment. It’s not just for sports and can be used for many different reasons. They are designed in such a way that they fit over your braces comfortably. This type of mouthguard is typically constructed with a soft material, such as silicone. The reason why the material used is important is because it needs to absorb the impact of an accident.

Regular Mouthguard

There are mouthguards that are not exclusively for the purpose of orthodontia. These are devices designed to protect your teeth when playing sports. The issue with a regular mouthguard, when wearing braces, is that they are not as large as orthodontic mouthguards, which is why they don’t always fit as comfortably. One of the issues that people usually have with regular mouthguards is that they are often made from plastic materials that are harder than the silicone often used to make orthodontic mouthguards.

A harder mouthguard can result in more pain when an accident occurs. As you can probably imagine, a mouthguard that is made from a hard material can have a more detrimental impact, in addition to being more painful. This is because it is not as good at cushioning the impact and protecting your braces. Subsequently, a mouthguard made from softer materials offers a greater amount of protection and reduces the chances of experiencing pain during an accident.

Something else to consider when trying to make a decision about which type of mouthguard to get is that an orthodontic mouthguard will provide better overall protection because it’s less likely to result in your teeth being out of alignment. The best way to decide which type of mouthguard to use is by consulting with your orthodontist.

If wearing braces doesn’t sound like a good option for you, schedule a consultation with Texas Orthodontic Specialists today to see if Invisalign would be a better fit for you. You can fill out a form below or contact us at any of our locations.

 

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